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The afternoon went rather well, 4 1/2 hours and its all apart. Tomorrow I have a couple of small items to attend to on the old frame -- the hitch, the steering relay, the rear grab handles -- and then its on to the new frame. So far things are going well, but I do have one additional task -- the rear ujoint is shot, so will have to be replaced. Since there's a little bit of fabrication to do along the way, it won't go together as fast as it came apart.
2 hours this morning and the wings are off, the winch is off, wiring sorted and tied back and time to stop for lunch. A good time to soak all the old bolts with WD40 for a bit. After lunch it will be off to the rental shop to pick up an engine lift, then off with the bulkhead and out with the engine. Hoepfully I'll be done by 5 or so.
I started the chassis swap today. Spent the morning cleaning the carport and getting organized. Spent from 2:30 to 6 PM tearing it apart. Amazing how much can be dismantled with a 1/2 & 7/16 wrench and socket, and a couple of screwdrivers. Removed roof, doors, seat frame, floor, gas tank, roll bar and rear tub. Tomorrow I'll try and remove the front wings, breakfast, radiator, bulkhead, and maybe get to the engine and tranny too. Depends on how cold it is.
It's been over a month since I've had a chance to spend an evening on the chassis. Cold weather, Founders Day, off-roading, other repairs and a really busy time at work have given me every excuse in the book to procrastinate going back out to finish up the welding and final preparations of the frame. Well, that came to an end today. I spent a couple of hours tonight flipping the frame right side up, and finishing off the crossmember that goes under the flywheel-clutch area.
Two things were needed on this crossmember: First, the left side gussetting had to be trimmed in order to accomodate the slave cylinder on the Series III gearbox. The IIa clutch has its slave cylinder on the right side, but the Series III is on the lower left, so when installing a Series III gearbox in a IIa frame, a little bit of trimming is required.
The second adjustment is a result of increasing the height. With an increase of the front suspension height the front driveshaft can touch this crossmember when the axle is articulating. In order to keep from hitting the crossmember, I've cut out a notch in the crossmember and welded in a patch. This actually worked faster and easier than I thought. The result is that the drive shaft can now flex much further than it was able to before. Now the only limitation will be the u-joints themselves.
In the next few days I'll be building shackles, cutting and fitting the mounts for the roll bar — although I'll weld it together later, and assembling the steering relay from parts contributed by Rick Mellenger. I'm hoping to take next week off, and actually start the change over... time will tell.
